Maps And Mazes - CH 3 of Becoming Thuperman

Sandra was always really good with solving puzzles and winning at games. That was the foundation for special powers as a super-heroine. Most eight-year-old girls play with dolls or read fairy tales. When they get older they collect dolls and read romance novels. Sandra always solved puzzles in her spare time whenever she wasn't playing video games. When she went to the bookstore she bought books about beating games and usually a book of puzzles to solve. It didn't matter what kind of puzzles were in the book, it didn't take her more than a few days to solve everything. She was that good.

On the way to the airport, Dad and Mom were talking while the radio played in the background, tuned to a Country station which Dad always listened to. Mom listened to it too, I guess, but she liked eighties pop music more so than Country. To me it all sounded mainly boring. Sandra and I didn't have any musical preferences at that point, I guess.

Sandra's older brother, Spike, whose real name was Lyle - yeah, I thought Spike was a cooler name, too - played drums in a Punk band called Drill. They were supposedly pretty good, as in they actually got paid for playing gigs. He dressed funny and frequently changed his hairdo. Each time he did it usually involved switching between colors not normally found in nature. As his nickname implied, his hair was stiffened with gel into sharp peaks atop his head. Whenever his hair was dark he colored the tips red so it almost looked like he had matches sticking up from his scalp. Definitely, he was not someone normal either, but that was cool, 'cause who was - especially in my world?

Sandra pulled out her wallet from the pocket of her jeans, removing a folded piece of paper from where you're supposed to keep whatever paper money you have - she had six dollars in there too, which was really good for a Wednesday in that her allowance was replenished every Friday. Carefully, she opened the paper and then handed it to me.

"What's this?" I asked.

"What does it look like?"

"Well, it sorta looks like a map."

"It is."

"What's it a map of?"

"I don't know, just something I drew last night."

"This was the project you were working on?"

"Part of it."

"It goes this way? I mean, this is the top?" I asked.

"Yeah, that's north."

I nodded. "None of the dots have names."

"I can't exactly name any of the places until I've been there."

"I don't think that's how it's supposed to work with maps. I kinda think it's supposed to help people find places they've never been. And to do that you have to name the places in advance so if the map is all wrong or it confuses you somehow, you can stop and ask directions."

"What if I don't want to ever go to those places?" she asked.

"They still exist, though."

"Do they?"

"Sure they do," I said. "I've never been to New York City where Dad's going, but it's there."

"Well, because your Dad is flying there."

"Even if he wasn't it would still be there."

She laughed. "Well, that can be your world. This one is mine." She pointed to the map. "So, I can make the rules. That's my first rule, that I make the rules."

"So, you're inventing a whole world and making it up as you go?"

"Well, not yet, just that part of it. I figure that's probably like the size of Bloomington and maybe out into the country a little ways."

"Okay."

"I didn't want to get too large just yet. It's not like I'm ready for anything bigger. I think, the world should be large enough so you don't feel confined but small enough so you don't get lost along the way."

"That makes some sense," I said - it did then and still does.

"So, this is tied to the real world?"

"My world, yes."

"Where are we now, then?"

"Right about here, almost off the edge."

"Okay. So, this is tied to the real world?"

"It sort of is, but it doesn't have to be."

"I kinda like this. I mean, if you don't like where you are, you can just be somewhere else."

"Exactly." She laughed.

I started folding it.

"No, you keep that one. It's yours."

"What about you?"

"I have another one, exactly like it. I made another one on Dad's copier. That's the original, so whatever we discover on that one, we mark it and it will appear on the other one, automatically."

"You think so?"

"Yeah, that's how things work in my world."

"That's cool. We can sort of make-up the world to suit us together, I guess."

"Yeah, I could use your help. That's why I made a copy."

Taking out my own wallet I started to fold up the map.

"No, once you open it, you have to not put it away when you're traveling, otherwise it doesn't work anymore."

"Okay, it's just that's going to be kind of hard to do all the time. Maybe not riding in a car but when I'm on my bike. Anyway, we're probably over the edge by now."

"Well, you have to keep it out until you memorize it."

"I can probably live with that rule." I returned my wallet to my hip pocket, not that there was anything much in it. I'd spent all my allowance before Sunday was over, but I was used to that.

The only thing I had in my wallet was an ID card I carried around ever since the day the police made it for me at school. They did that one day for all the kids who had their parents' permission. An official file was created with my fingerprints and the color or my eyes, hair where I have birthmarks and scars - stuff like that. It was supposed to be so they could find me easier if I got lost. I knew my name, address, phone number, parents' names and all that - the very same information on the ID card. So other than having my finger prints on it, I wasn't sure how it was supposed to help me if I got lost. And if I was lost and all they had left of me was my finger prints, being found wouldn't matter to me much. It wasn't like I needed the ID card. I knew who I was, of course. But it was to show everyone else, I guess.

The way Sandra explained her map, though, it seemed like a much better idea than having an ID card.

"You see, if we ever get lost," she said. "Like we're separated from each other, you just have to head back to the center, right here," she pointed to the center of the map indicating the origin of her world, which was in her bedroom in her house.

"And that works?"

"I haven't tried it yet, but it should, don't you think?"

"Yeah, sure. I mean, why not?"

"My dad always says life's an adventure, so you need to always be prepared to go somewhere else. I think if I'm going on an adventure, I need to have a map so I can find my way back to where I started out."

"Why would anyone want to get back to Normal?"

Sandra laughed at what I said, then I did too, realizing what it meant if someone didn't know I was talking about the city we were from. Then, after she stopped laughing she took my hand. "If we ever get separated, maybe going back to where we started is the best way to find each other."

I nodded. It made a lot of sense to me.

Sandra went on to explain where the idea of the map came from. Her dad told her a story about when he was a kid and the guys he played with on the street where he grew up found a map they all decided must be a treasure map. So they tried to figure out what place the map represented so they could find the buried treasure.

"Did they ever find the treasure."

"No, because they never figured out what the map was."

"See, that's why you need to name the places on a map," I said, feeling it proved my previous point.

"Well that would have been helpful if the person drawing the map wanted a stranger to find the treasure. But it was probably for the map drawer to remember where he buried it."

"Okay, I guess I can see that happening. Does your dad still have the map?"

"No, he said he kept it for a while but it got misplaced in all the moving around his parents did. It wasn't around here anyway. It was when Dad's dad was in the Army and he moved around a lot."

"I see."

Sandra's father, Bud - like the abbreviation for the beer though that was not even close to his given name, Roger - owned a hardware store in town. He was one of those Mr. Fix-it kind of guys. Dad asked him to do favors anytime something broke around the house, which was often enough as our house was pretty old. Usually something would stop working and Dad would attempt to fix it and, in the process, mess it up a lot worse than it was before. He'd call Bud and he'd come over, fix whatever it was and then Dad and Bud would end up on the back porch drinking the aforementioned beers and talking until it was past my bedtime. I'm not sure what they talked about. But sometimes I overheard them mentioning Sandra and me.

Sandra's mom was teacher's aid at the elementary school. She had been since before Sandra and I started school, so usually I called her Mrs. Richardson anyway, even if Sandra called her Betty, though her real name was Elizabeth. Bud and Betty insisted Sandra and Spike call them by their first names. Usually, Sandra did that when she was at home. Most other times she referred to her parents as Dad or Mom.

My parents were more traditional. My dad would have been pissed if I called him Irv or, even worse, Irving - he hated his given name almost as much as I did Wilson. Mom was okay if I called her Lois, but it didn't seem right, if I called my dad, Dad, and my mom, Lois. There's a lot to be said about keeping balance to the things in your life and that just never felt like it was level enough.

Bud had a second life - that's how he referred to it. The garage in their house wasn't the place Betty or Bud parked their vehicles. It was a workshop. Inside there was every tool I could ever imagine ever existing, a lot of things I had no idea what they were for - and still don't. Sandra's dad knew how to use every one of them, though.

With those tools he made things for other people, custom built cabinets, tables, chairs - but not just woodworking stuff. He made other things as well. When I was eight, I was pretty sure Bud was really a wizard in disguise. When I mentioned that to Sandra, she kind of agreed with me, especially after he made a faerie castle for her birthday, somewhere to keep her collection of tiny faerie figurines. It was actually pretty cool looking, like it was another world sitting on a rug on the hardwood floor of her bedroom.

According to Sandra, the center of the map I held in my hand represented the very spot in her bedroom where that faerie castle sat. Knowing Sandra as I did, that made a lot of sense. One of her many personas was Sand, a name she shared with one of her faerie figurines. She said sometimes they traded places and she became a faerie. To me that seemed kind of crazy. Why would you become a faerie and just stand around in a small castle. Sandra said once she traded places, all the faeries, including her, could move around like people normally would. Of course, that only worked when Sandra was in her room alone, so it was hard for me to comment on it further other than to say I believed she believed what she told me.

"So, where do you want to go?" Sandra asked. It came abruptly, jarring me from wherever my daydreaming mind meandered, dragging the rest of me along. I had to think about what we were talking about before.

Man, What Are You Doing Here? - Changing Careers

Nothing was easy about the decision. Choices of such magnitude rarely are. For a very long time, I felt under appreciated and overworked. Certainly, my condition was not unique.I'd grown embarrassed in my situation, though. Pride in my work was absent. So was the sense of accomplishment at day's end. Was there ever enough for the puppet masters who delighted in micromanaging my daily dance?

The conclusion of too many at-work conversations was, 'man, what are you doing here?' There was no easy answer. I ended up doing what I did and allowed it to become what I was. For a time, it was a satisfying diversion. The compensation was good enough to dream of a comfortable life in my later years while providing for my family's immediate needs.

It never stopped mattering to me. I always sought to do my best. My achievements went unrecognized, but it did not matter much. I was compensated for what I did and it always allowed me time alone to pursue my dreams and diversions.

Since my family was mature, the kids moved out, my married life over, my dreams became my truest ambitions.

Then, my job encroached more routinely upon private time. Although I couldn't afford it, I could not do otherwise but what I did. The compensation for my work was never increased. Only the demands and expectations of my time grew, ever insisting I do more and stay later if necessary.

For the sake of my sanity and sense of balance, I resigned. Since that decision, I have struggled in many ways, but in others I have succeeded. Jobless, I have reached a higher level of creativity than I could have otherwise achieved.

My new career is writing. So, I'll write, until I exhaust whatever I needed to say.

The Hitchhiker - excerpt from an unpublished novel

Brent needed to just get away from it, all of it. He got in his car and drove. At first he drove toward the shopping mall on the north side of town. He had spent a few afternoons walking around and looking at all the things that he could not afford. But as he approached the mall he turned left, not right, and then right again, and drove to the northwest, and out toward Stephanie's neighborhood.

After a while, he decided that he did not need to talk to his friends as much as he needed to experience something new, breaking the routine of the past couple of weeks since Christmas. The thought of studying again well into the early hours of morning, taking a combat nap and then rushing down to campus had already gotten old. He had found that he looked forward to a cup of coffee in the morning to stimulate him back to coherency, and that scared him. He was becoming just like his parents.

He turned left, intending no particular direction, as he reached the western edge of the suburbs. He knew that if he turned right, he would not go far without finding familiar places, or at least sights he had already seen. He continued along a road that he had never before traveled until he approached a crossroad. There was a sign indicating the way to Lake Travis; he had never been there. In fact, whatever was west of the city was a great mystery to him, even if everyone he knew had promised him that beyond the large man-made lake there was vast emptiness.

The turn headed him south at first, then he turned to the west out toward the hill country where, as Tim had said, there was a 'whole lot of nothing except for cattle grazing'. Brent had never been sailing on Lake Travis even though he had heard that the lake was big enough. He had never even seen the lake until the moment that he turned to travel along the ridge that skirted it. He pulled over at an overlook where he could get out of the car. He stood amazed as the vastness of the man-made wonder. It was a triumph and marvel of the manipulation of nature. Somehow it felt appropriate that near the heart of Texas there should be such a monument, evidence of the need to warp the world to serve the immediate needs of all that lived in the vicinity. Ostensibly the lake, along with Town Lake that was downstream and separated the north side of Austin from the south, served as flood control on the Colorado River. Compared to Lake Travis, Town Lake was minuscule.

When he returned to his car, he continued to drive to the west, between fields that emphasized that Texas was certainly big enough to contain vast stretches of land that was not good for anything else than growing beaver tail cactus and a few head of longhorns. He drove for about an hour completely numbed by the vast monotonous scenery. until he decided that nothing was about to change anytime soon. He stopped, made a three-point turn on the road, and headed back the way he came.

Along the way of his return, he saw someone that he had not noticed before, but he had to have passed by him. After all, the man was walking or rather hitchhiking. Perhaps someone had dropped him off. But that also seemed unlikely. There were no other directions to go in the immediate area except east and west, and Brent had not seen a car or truck on the road for sometime.

The man appeared to be carrying his life's worth in a backpack. He had a long staff that he used to assist him in his efforts. Brent pulled over at the side of the road and tooted the horn as indication that he was willing to give him a lift. The man hurried toward the car and, as Brent leaned over and opened the passenger door for him, he peered into the car.

"Are you going to Austin?" He asked.

"Yeah, com'on. Get in."

He opened the door and put his backpack and the staff in the back seat and settled into the passenger seat. "I appreciate the help," he said.

"I was just out for a drive," Brent said. "It's funny. I was driving west earlier and I didn't even notice you. Maybe I wasn't paying attention."

"I suppose that is the story of my life," the hitchhiker said. "Anyway, in case no one else ever told you before, you notice only whatever you want to notice."

"My name is Brent."

"I'm Earl."

"I have a cousin named Earl."

"Everyone knows someone named Earl, or at least that has been my experience."

"Do you have business in Austin?"

"It is the next big city on the way," Earl said. "That's good enough reason to head there."

"Where are you going after that?"

"New Orleans."

"No kidding. I have been through there exactly once, but never really saw much of the place. My brother-in-law and I decided to detour down through there as we were driving back to Ft. Walton Beach, after helping move my parents to the Rio Grande Valley."

"That sounds like quite a trip," Earl said.

"It was. We drove straight through, taking turns at the wheel. We got to New Orleans around sunset and stopped in the French Quarter just to see what it looked like - we didn't have time to stay or do anything else."

"So you were just satisfying your curiosity, just to be able to say that you'd seen The Big Easy."

"Well, it didn't seem like we should just drive straight through Louisiana and not even see New Orleans. I mean, since we had the chance and all."

"So, did you like what you saw?" he asked.

"I guess so, but it was different than what I expected."

"Isn't that always the way of it? You can imagine all sorts of things that simply can't be," he said. "Of course, in New Orleans a lot of things are possible that would never be allowed anywhere else. I'm a friggin' genius when it comes to things like that."

"Really."

"Yeah, really."

"Are you from New Orleans?"

"Anyone who moves to New Orleans is instantaneously and magically transformed. They are suddenly and irrevocably made into natives of the city, regardless wherever they have previously lived. Who is there to say any different?"

Brent laughed. "I guess I'll have to go there sometime when I can spend a few days to really see the sights."

"What's stopping you from going now? Giving me a ride all the way there is a perfect excuse to spend some time."

"I have classes."

"Oh, so you're a college student," he said, but it almost sounded like a curse, or at least a form of summary judgment.

"I'm nearly done with school. I have three more semesters, Spring and two Summer sessions and then I am done!"

"I tried college exactly twice. The first time, I should have known better, and the second time, I guess I hadn't learned my lesson from the first time. The second time around I had volunteered for the US Air Force, trying like hell to avoid having to go to 'Nam. But, damned if the Air Force didn't find out that I'd been to college for a bit! The decided that maybe they could teach me a foreign language. They sent me to Syracuse University on their ticket and taught me Russian."

"Wow!"

"Yeah, wow!" Earl said. "It might have been the most useless thing I have ever learned, except that learning it so that I could do what I did in 'Nam actually allowed me to survive the whole insane experience of being there."

Brent frowned with his incomprehension, but did not comment, as he steered ahead.

"Now, you may ask what in the Hell was I was doing in 'Nam and why did they need me to be able to understand and speak Russian. I wondered that myself. But sure as hell, they sent me smack dab in the most humid, stinky part of this world's groin. I might even tell you the truth of what I did there, except that it is still at least confidential and those people that I worked for are everywhere," he glanced at Brent. "For all I know, even you could be one of them."

"I assure you, I am not."

"Well, anyway the real reason I was there was to play the game. It was the special-edition, global version of chess that we call The Cold War. It was the place that the two most powerful nations on Earth had decided to set down the board and set up all their playing pieces, after having ended in stalemate the last time the board was tossed down in Korea. What did either of the two big guys care about 'Nam? No one cares about the real people who have to live in any strategically necessary place. Their armies and their people were trapped in between the two bullies who had just entered their block and taken up temporary residence. Through no fault of their own, the common people always end up suffering, and for what? Is it merely the accident of birth? They should have been born into a better life, into a country that was not so strategically important in the Superpower view of the world. But then, who has a choice in such things?"

"I couldn't say."

"We were moving our pieces and advancing our proxy's pawns, but at least we weren't doing it in our homeland, or throwing the substantial pieces of hell that each of the Superpowers possessed at one another's mother country. That was how I saw it, anyway. I was there to do my small part in keeping the Russians from invading America. Oddly, it occurred to me that I was also there to keep America from invading Russia. I know it makes no sense, because it is senseless by its very nature. After all, I'm American. But somehow and somewhere, I had become a part of the elaborate balance designed to produce no change in the overall status quo of the prevailing world order. I had been through all the training and had been fully convinced in the validity of what I was doing. I understood all the strange nuances of political intrigue in a very fundamental way that all of the politicians in the world could never possible explain to their representative masses."

"You fought there?"

"I did a sight bit more than fight. I interrogated people and then, usually I killed them. If I felt really benevolent, it was one bullet through the temple," He pointed his finger to the exact place for emphasis. "If they had been belligerent and seriously pissed me off, I cut them open from their sternum to their hoo-hoo and pulled their guts out and hung them in a tree close to where ever I was camped. That served very well to dissuade others from interrupting my naptime. That was my part of the game."

"So, you have actually killed people."

"Who was in 'Nam that survived and didn't kill?"

"Well, I don't know anything about it."

"Thank God or whatever you worship that you don't," Earl said, drawing a deep breath before continuing. "I knew what they knew about global policies, and that none of us understood that level of selecting the proverbial shit from the Shinola. In the game we were playing, the rules were pretty simple. If anyone got caught, you knew what would happen. You got pumped for the information you possessed and then afterwards, after all the torture that you never believed one human could put another human through and have anyone survive, you would spill your guts figuratively just to make the pain go away. That was where I fit in; me, the mean interrogator who would extract every possible secret through torture, then spill their guts literally, making the pain subside forever. It was a professional courtesy, one spy to another - that sort of thing. I knew it up front. They knew it as well. It was part of the code, the unwritten rules of international espionage. So, knowing that if I was ever captured, I was a dead man, I certainly and particularly avoided capture with a good deal of urgency. I became pretty damned good at hiding whenever I needed to."

"I'll bet. So, you were in the Air Force?"

"Yeah, well, they were the ones that paid me. I went through basic training and all that crap, but I was always in a special group who the Air Force had sent to language school on Uncle Sam's tab. I even went through survival training on the same ticket. After I was deployed, I was given civilian clothes to wear and told that I needed to blend in, as much as possible. They gave me press credentials!"

"They? You're telling me that you were a spy, like working for the CIA."

"No, I worked a time or two with those clowns," he laughed. "Don't get me wrong, one of those clowns saved my hide once, but the people I worked for, no one ever hears about. I was part of something essential to the peace and balance of the entire world, something that transcended national interests. I belonged to something euphemistically called The Program."

Brent's eyes widened. "I have heard of The Program."

Suddenly, Earl fell silent.

"What can you tell me about them?"

"Nothing," Earl said, curtly.

"Did I say something wrong?"

"You know enough about them already. If you know them at all, you know too much to be an outsider. Our conversation is over. I have already said far too much. You can drop me off here."

"Look, I'm sorry. It's just, I have received correspondence from them. I have heard about them from someone else, someone who lived in Asia."

"Then run away while you have the chance, not that it will matter much. If they have targeted you already, you have no choice."

"I can still tell them no."

"Yeah and you can believe that for now. So, you don't work for them, yet," Earl laughed. "Look, I appreciate the ride and all that. I really mean that. But you can let me out now. Really, it's fine. Anywhere that you want is okay. You go ahead and say no to them just for shits and giggles, and then see what happens."

"I have interviews coming up, one with the CIA."

"What in the hell is wrong with you?"

"I thought it would be a good practice interview."

"There is no practice about it. You start testing the water with your toe and suddenly the shark comes up out of the water and capsizes your boat and you're trying hard as hell just to tread water while the sharks keep circling around you, trying to decide where to bite you first, or waiting for your to shit youself because maybe we taste better that way."

"I have some other interviews scheduled with banks and an oil extraction company."

"And what makes you think that is not working for them all the same? If they like you, they are going to give you a cover job. After you go through the training, they always give you a cover job until they need to deploy you. Sometimes, the cover job is even in the military, which makes it very easy for them. Once they have identified you as someone with the gifts and talents that they desire, you have no choice but to work for them."

"I'm not sure I believe that."

Earl shrugged. "You're a good kid. I mean that in all sincerity. You were probably a high school hero of some sort. Maybe you were even some star athlete or something. I hate like hell to know what they are going to do to you, but I also know it is as inevitable dying. They will fuck you up so badly that you will believe in their causes, even when what they tell you to do is diametrically opposed to what they told you to do the previous week or even a day before. They will program you to be a perfect mercenary. It is how they achieve their goals. At the end of it all, when you are emotionally and physically spent, they will cast you aside and discredit you as a lunatic, just as they have done to me - just in case someone like me might shoot my mouth off to someone like you."

"How can they do that? I mean, isn't it llegal?"

"There is nothing illegal about it. They make the rules as they go, Brent. They always have. The system that you believe in is a government and the bodies of laws. All nations have that and some are even proud of the peace and stability that they credit largely to their constitutions and the strength of their governments and militaries. At times, there are some things fabricated to keep the masses under control, so that they focus on the guy who ran a stop light, or the jealous woman that 'offed' her husband after finding him in bed with the babysitter. All the while, the real players are concerned with geopolitical matters that have ramifications extending beyond anyone's lifetime."

They were nearing the lookout at Lake Travis, and so Brent pulled over and temporarily parked.

"This is as good a place as any to drop me off," Earl said. "Thanks for the ride, Brent. And best of luck with the bastards that will relentlessly hound you," he said as he proceeded to get out.

"Look, I still have some questions here. Maybe you know the answers. Let's talk for a bit."

"Me? I have no answers. I'm nuts, Brent. Hasn't that occurred to you? Look at me; I am you, only ten or twenty years from now. I;ve been stripped of my sanity but not my pride or dignity. Somehow, I salvaged a bit of that."

"When you came back from 'Nam, what did they do for you?"

"They did absolute shit. I was so fucked up in the head that nothing seemed real to me anymore. I checked myself into a hospital. I needed some help determining where I fit in with the world. This world made no sense to me, anymore. People didn't just capture one another, pump out the information and then get rid of the empty husk. What I learned in the hospital was that there were some people there who were more fucked up than I was at dealing with the world; some of them were orderlies, nurses and doctors."

"A mental hospital."

"Yeah, I was in the loony bin. That's what the future has in store for you, Brent: a lot of very well-meaning people telling you that you must have imagined everything that you ever did previous to you checking in and seeking their 'professional' help."

"You recovered. I mean they let you out."

"I told them I had recovered. I proved to them that I was sane enough to pass their silly fuckin' tests. I was good enough with the real crazies that they even hired me as an orderly. They assigned me to watch this guy named Dave. He was one scary son of a bitch, that for some reason, had become attached to me. He never fuckin' slept, so he had to be watched all the time. The orderlies took shifts watching him 24/7/365. He talked constantly. At times, I listened to his rants, not that I should have been doing that other than monitoring for the two key words that indicated he was about to become violent. Whenever he mentioned Jesus or Elvis, all hell was about to break loose."

"I can maybe see Jesus, but why Elvis?"

"Who the fuck knows? He was nuts!"

"Okay."

"One night. he was in rare form. I was paying attention to some of what he was saying because it was different than the usual fare. The guy pointed out some disturbing things at times that made you think that maybe he wasn't the crazy one after all. Then he started talking about a past life that he had, and so I violated the one hard and fast rule, never to engage a conversation with him. I immediately asked him if he believed in reincarnation. He turned and looked at me straight in the eyes in a way that he never did with anyone, and, then he smiled. Do you know what the sick bastard said to me?"

"No," Brent responded.

"He said, 'well you made it back now didn't ya?'"

A sudden and irrepressible chill ran through Brent."

"Anyway, his saying that really 'creeped-me-out' so badly that I knew I had to get out of there. After that, I put in my notice. When I was out of the hospital, I went to work for a contractor removing debris from a work site. He eventually figured out from talking to me that I had a pretty good education, and he let me do his books and such. It paid pretty well but I always had a pain that never quite disappeared. It was a self-destructive tendency that I even blamed on The Program. They make it hard for us to survive outside, and so I thought that maybe they even programmed me to self-destruct.

"I started drinking, smoking pot, doing everything that I could think of to kill myself short of taking an overdose, swallowing Drain-o or sucking on a the barrel of a loaded gun until deciding to pull the trigger. The Society just doesn't want complications lingering around. I have been defying them ever since I figured that out."

"Why not go back to work for them?"

"Fuck that! I'd rather be dead!. After all the shit I have been through, I would never even talk to them."

Brent started his car.

"Wait! I was in the process of getting out."

"Look, you need a shower and a place to sleep for a day or two," he said, as he backed the car away from the barrier and pulled back out onto the road and headed toward the edge of the city. "You can hang out in my apartment for a few days."

"I have never been to Austin," Earl admitted.

"It is a place that God had in mind when he was working on a prototype for Heaven."

"Yeah, I have heard nothing but good things about it. I had always wanted to come through this way just never had the chance."

"You are traveling far from the Interstate, aren't you?"

"A guy I worked with in 'Nam lives in San Angelo which is back up the road, a right turn or two and a left or three and you're there."

"Well, I think you should stay in Austin at my place for a few days, get to know the place. Hell, my roommate stays at his girlfriend's place all the time; you can crash on his bed or the couch in the living room."

"That's an awfully nice and unexpected offer."

"Consider it the one thing that someone did in gratitude for what you went through for this country."

Earl chuckled. "Well it isn't the only thing. I got a blow job once just because I was a vet."

Brent laughed. "I won't compete with that."

"I wouldn't expect you to. Besides you are not my type."

Going On A Road Trip - CH 2 of Becoming Thuperman

Dad, whose given name was Irving, Irv for short, was born and raised on a small farm near Normal. When he graduated from high school his dad insisted he go to college to learn everything there was to know about farming. So he attended Illinois State which was just on the other side of town from where he grew up. Somewhere along the way Dad decided to study business administration instead of farming. He also met Mom at college.

Mom, whose name was Eloise, though she cringes when anyone calls her that, was anything but a farm girl. Dad called her big city 'cause technically she was from Chicago. At least she was born there. In truth she grew-up in the suburbs on the northwest side of Chicago. Mom's parents, who I called Gram and Gramps, always called her Ellie. Dad and everyone else apart from us kids called her Lois.

Dad used to tell me crazy stories about Mom. In one she ran away from home and eloped with him. In another he said she married him because she didn't have bus fare to get back to Chicago after she graduated. He claimed Papaw and Mamaw, what I called his parents, gave them a place to stay right after they married so they didn't have to freeze to death out in the cold or anything. When I asked Mom if that was true she didn't exactly deny it, but she made it sound more like she felt sorry for Dad because he was a country boy and he always wanted to be a city boy.

Embarrassing as it is for me to admit it I was gullible enough to believe Dad's stories – for a while anyway. After I got older I heard the real truth. I understood that some of what Dad told me was correct just he slanted it a little in his favor. You see, Dad was shy. In college he had two friends who sort of set him up to meet Mom at a party. Apparently, Mom did most of the talking. Dad must have liked her a lot because they ended up married.

If Dad had a special power, it was being quiet. When he did talk, you probably needed to listen because usually he was mad about something. Most of the time he let Mom do the talking, though. Mom seemed to be okay with that because she loved to talk.

It wasn't only Dad's stories I fell for. My sisters tricked me, too. Pretty much anyone I trusted took advantage of me. What did I know? I was easily duped.

When I was only six I still believed in a lot of things people lie about - including Santa, the Easter Bunny and most of the special offers advertised on Saturday morning cartoon TV cereal commercials. Brenda, my oldest sister who was the first person I knew so far who actually went by her given name as it was on her birth certificate, enjoyed being the source of my disappointment telling me whenever someone had lied to me. Whether it was done as a joke or not, it was not right to lie to a little kid – just saying.

Whenever Brenda made fun of me, my other older sister Linda, whose real name is Belinda, laughed and teased me because of how stupid I was. It was what older sisters were supposed to do to their baby brothers – at least to their thinking. Yes, revenge would come when I got older, but that's getting ahead of the story here.

Mom grew up an only child not too far from Lake Michigan and only a few minutes from Wisconsin. She lived in this really big house with a swimming pool in the backyard where just Gram and Gramps live now. Gramps was an executive of some kind who worked in one of the tall buildings in Chicago. Gram did a lot of charity work. To me it seemed like they had a lot of room for just two people, but I guess they didn't have to worry about where everyone was going to sleep whenever we came to visit them, which we did about once or twice every summer and usually for either Thanksgiving or Christmas.

Going there for visits was great, especially when we piled into the van and headed for the beach. Not that I complained, but I wasn't sure why it was necessary to go to the beach if all we were going to do was swim – which we could have done in the backyard in their swimming pool. The lake was more fun, I guess. There were other things to do there.

Oblivious to all the warnings about over exposure to the sun, especially when there was playing to be done, going to the beach meant sunburn. Spending an entire day out in the sun, even with sun block on, was extremely dangerous for me, due to my fair complexion. Mom used to say, I could walk past a picture of the sunset and get burnt. That wasn't far from the truth. She knew. I took after her having red hair, freckles and extremely white skin. Because I generally was outside whenever I played, I stayed in the shade as much as possible. Even so, wherever my skin was exposed turned red before, maybe eventually, turning tan.

One summer day when both Sandra and I were eight, my dad was going up to Chicago to fly out on a business trip to New York. Mom was driving him to the Midway Airport. Dad hated flying out of O'Hare because of the confusing, spaghetti-like freeway system around it – not that he ever drove when he had to go there. Mom served as his chauffer anytime he had to go anywhere in Chicago because she was from there originally. Somehow, despite all the things that changed about the city since she last lived there, Mom never seemed to get lost when she drove. Dad learned that a long time before I was born.

Other than taking Dad to the airport, there was nothing planned that day. Of course, when Mom asked if I wanted to go I was ready and rearing to go. Even at age eight, I understood Mom needed to take me along because my older sisters wouldn't pay proper attention to me in her absence. Brenda was thirteen so she was self-impressed at being a teenager – though just barely. Linda was ten, impressed in her own way at having reached double digits – which she claimed sort of made her like a teen, somehow. Neither of them paid a lot of attention to me, which was generally a good thing except for when Mom wanted them to watch me. I could die and they wouldn't know it until they came looking for me in response to Mom's car pulling into the driveway. To her credit Mom knew that. A trip to Chicago and back would take a huge chunk out of the middle of the day, around five hours, which was too long for her to leave me with my mostly evil sisters.

Mom didn’t like me hanging out at Sandra's house for most of the day either. Mom always worried I'd wear out my welcome. I asked Sandra's Mom about that and she told me I was like a part of the family. Family can wear out their welcome too, I suppose, just it takes longer. Except for the excitement of the idea of a road trip, I might have preferred staying behind just to be at a Sandra's house because she had some really cool things to do at her house, like all her video games, but Mom insisted in taking me along. That meant the trip there and back would take six hours because we would stop somewhere to eat and maybe have to stop a couple of times going and coming for me to use the restroom. Also, Mom hated driving alone, so having me to talk to was better than nothing.

For me, going anywhere was better than just hanging around our neighborhood. But since I planned everyday around spending time playing with Sandra, we kind of always had plans already. When I talked to her on the phone the night before, Sandra told me she was working on a special secret project. She hadn't told me what it was yet. So, not wanting to miss out on finding out what she had been working on, I asked if she could come along on the road trip. At least that way I would have her to talk to and do other things with on the way to and from the airport. Of course, my request started a chain reaction of questions beginning with my Dad asking, "Why?"

"Because I'm sure she'd like to go, too," I replied. Wasn't that obvious? What kid would refuse a road trip?

A minor discussion ensued. At the end of it Mom told me I needed to call to ask her for her parents' permission. It seemed silly to me. It wasn't like Sandra hadn't gone places with us before. I mean, getting permission once for something should be enough as long as nothing bad happened before, right? I knew better than to argue, though. As required, I called, except when Sandra's Mom answered the phone, I seized the opportunity and asked her directly.

"Can Sandra come with me to take my dad to the airport in Chicago?"

The result might be expected. Her mom yelled, asking Sandra if she wanted to go. Now, Sandra was kind of already on her way out the door to come to my house anyway, so I knew what the answer was before I heard her confirm it with her mom. Why was all that asking and answering necessary?

Maybe people just feel it's necessary to talk even if all they do is ask silly questions and receive equally stupid answers. To me, it was something my Mom could have answered with a simple, okay and been done with it. Now, since I've graduated to thinking something like an adult, I understand the necessity of letting Sandra's parents in on the plans, but back then, it seemed pretty silly to both Sandra and me.

There wasn't a big deal about Sandra tagging along for the ride or anything. Mom liked Sandra. Dad did too, but he never came right out and said it. Dad was friends with Sandra's dad. Our moms got along well too. Dad worried a little about me hanging out with a girl almost all the time, but he understood the situation. She lived a few doors down. The guys on my street were mostly younger or older. The few who were my age were not the kind I wanted to be around. For the most part, they weren't the sorts my mom and dad would approve of anyway. So, Sandra was my best - and pretty-much only - friend throughout that period of my life.

For both Sandra and me, the idea of going to Chicago for any reason was exciting. It was reason enough to make the otherwise dull trip up the Interstate. If you've never experienced a ride anywhere in the Midwest, let me explain. Flat and boring landscape with barns and silos here and there along with a few trees. When storms roll through and lightning strikes, it hits the tallest things. In the Midwest those things were trees, barns, silos, houses, or whatever was above the grass. Many times an overpass on the Interstate looked like a hill from a distance. Some places really tall towers carry electricity across the countryside and in others there were relatively new windmills that turned wind into electricity. Unfortunately birds flew into the spinning blades maiming or killing themselves.

Overall, in the countryside around where I grew up there was more 'nothing to see' than 'anything to do'. Without Sandra along, I might have fallen asleep while staring out the backseat window as the humdrum landscape passed by. The one or two interesting things to see along the way were exceptions Mom or Dad might have pointed out in the past to prevent me from missing them, but, considering I was eight, I had made the trip enough times that I was on my own as far sightseeing. Sandra felt the way as I did about the scenery. So, as we sat together in the back seat, mostly we talked to one another. That way Mom and Dad could pay attention to driving and their own conversation in the front seat and not be bothered with entertaining us.

Mom offered us coloring books and crayons for entertainment along the way. Dad handed us a legal pad and two pencils. But we were bored quickly with both and broke out our handheld games and went at it in head to head competition until motion sickness got the better of me. Settling back in the seat with a headache, I apologized to Sandra. She shrugged it off, saying she was tired of beating me anyway. I suggested we talk some more instead and for a while we did that until my headache went away.

When Two Artists - A Poem

When two artists...

Inspire one another:

With fluid motion scribing digitally,
Her words affect my heart and soul.
She inspires me.
So I continue to create amazing visions.

Maybe I do something like that for her.
I don't know because in mystery she remains.
The current muse of my present moment,
A strange symbiosis began
When old souls met anew.

We are two artists, who share respect,
For one another and the written word.
We do what we need to do.
It is what has to be.

It is life.

It is breath.

It is purpose.

It is us.

Never fear the spark of inspiration
Ever to fade.
It was intended all along.
Believe that.
Move on without question.
Create your visions,
While I create mine.

Independence Day Salute

As we celebrate Independence Day let's not forget all those who have made this year a special one for us to observe. When you are outside in your backyard or where ever, lift your head and look aloft and give a 4th Of July salute to the surveillance satellites so that our government knows how much you truly appreciate what they are doing. You may use as many fingers in that salute as you wish but just remember, they know where you are and what you're doing.

E

The Art Of Zen Lawn Mowing - Humorous

I wake up with the fear that my children may be late again for school. This is the only thing that prevents me from rolling over and resuming the dream that the alarm clock has rudely interrupted, even though again and again I keep hitting 'snooze'. Why would anyone invent something to wake you up and then put a button on it that allows you to override it and go back to sleep for five minute intervals? The snooze button has to be one of the stupidest inventions ever! Having said all that, I use it, too; so, that speaks for itself.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, I am in such a peaceful dream. A cool breeze lifts my hair as I run down a hill and take to wings of flight. It is a recurring dream in my hit parade of a dozen or so. I will have it again, I'm sure. It is just that I do not remember ever having made it to an ending. The alarm has always interrupted it. It would be my luck for the dream to end with me plummeting to my death like the ill-fated Icarus.

I believe that if I am ever to dream the complete dream after crashing to Earth I will awaken in a panic only to the realization that I am on an airplane that is spiraling uncontrollably toward an imminent crash. I think there is more than enough irony in the world for such a thing to happen.

I don't know why I dream of flying; I hate flying. Even when I was in the Air Force, I hated flying. You might ask why I would ever want to be in the Air Force if I hated flying. Well that is not the only time I have ever done something that doesn't make any sense. I'm sure it won't be the last.

I digress.

I hate it when people say that, "I digress." In this instance, though I really do digress.

Wait! Have I nodded off again? I roll over, glance at the clock. "No!" I launch from the bed with flailing arms and sprawling legs. I fling the covers in every conceivable direction - whichever way they want to fly and to whatever resting place gravity eventually recovers them. I rush to awaken my children, immediately infecting them with my panic.

"We are late. I'm sorry. I overslept!"

"Not again, Dad!" they complain, and rightly so as it is the fourth time this week and it is Thursday - at least I think it is Thursday.

"I was up late, writing." I resort to using the truth as an excuse while I stand referee over the bathroom, allowing equal access and time for my daughters while permitting my son to use my bathroom. "You know how I am when I stay up late," I offer as a further explanation. "Anyway why don't you set the alarm clocks that each of you has?"

"Dad! You're supposed to wake us," my eldest daughter said.

"Yeah, but we know how Dad is, so it's our fault that we are late. We trusted him how many times this week and he has failed how many times to wake us?"

I had been almost ready to embrace my son for his kind understanding until that last bit about my failure. It wasn't that he was wrong just that I felt like it was me I was talking to just then when I said, "Never accept the blame."

Because it is a frequent enough occurrence, they know the drill. I prepare bagels and cream cheese to eat on the way toschool and hastily make their lunches. When they are dressed we hurry outside and into the Jeep. I try to make it to the bus stop in time. I don't know why I even bother. All week long we have been too late but on the off chance that the bus is also running late, maybe that is the thought process; maybe I am still not awake enough to have rational thoughts. The kids so seldom ride the bus that I bet that when they do make it to the stop on time the driver thinks they are new in town.

Having confirmed that there are no kids waiting at the bus stop, we turn and head a more direct route to school. Breaking speed limits, I drive them over the two bridges of the Pineda Causeway and out onto the beach-side where their schools are- middle school for the girls, high school for the boy, arriving just in the nick of time. Then, having wished each of them a good day at school, I slip back out of the panic mode. I take deep breaths, calming down.

On the drive back home I stop by the convenience store for a cold soda. I don't do coffee in the morning. I don't especially like coffee. I have to add ample cream to make it palatable and to me it just seems pointless to drink anything that I have to amend that much to be able to tolerate its taste. So I prefer to drink a soda. I like the taste of soda.

By the time that I return home the sun has fully risen to illuminate my small, almost insignificant parcel of the Florida landscape. Suddenly I remember that today was the day that I promised I would mow the lawn.

It does no good to ignore it. I have tried to convince myself that eventually if let be, the grass would grow so tall that it would even stop growing. Of course that would by far exceed the standards of the deed-restricted community. The home owner's association would protest and levy fines and do all sorts of wicked, nasty things in the name of preserving sacred property values. I could have let the lawn die, but who wants to live in a house surrounded by a brown yard...or white gravel for that matter. Already, I have had enough run-ins with the homeowner's association, so I opt not to push my luck; I consent to mowing the lawn regularly. The only part of the covenants of the home-owner's association that I really agree with is that no one can turn their yard into a white gravel landscape.

I mow it, knowing full well it will take at least a whole hour to accomplish. As this is one of the most mundane tasks a person can possibly do, it is the source of frequent and self-renewing dread. It is the worst hour of my life. It is something revisited about every week and sometimes even more often provided the number of decent natural rain storms and whether I bothered to fertilize back in the spring.

I engage in the ritual filling of the lawnmower's gas tank. Afterwards, I check the oil. As I have already broken a sweat under the hot spring sun, I sit back and relax for a bit. When my period of rest and recomposing ends, I make sure the blades are still attached to the bottom of the mower. My dad's friend, Stubs always warned me to never check the blade unless the mower was turned off. Always I have heeded his warning for the intervening years.

I take deep, cleansing breaths then release them slowly to reach a near trance-like state as I perpetuate my pseudo-productive procrastination. Then only as a last resort I make sure that the engine still starts. If there is an unsatisfactory result in the ritual blessing of the mowing equipment, I have the perfect excuse to delay the mowing for yet another day.

However, the usual case is that everything is in fine working order and unfortunately without further excuse or delay, I must now set about mowing the lawn. At this point, my trance has attained a Zen-like state, so that while I am methodically, even mechanically performing the routines of back and forth, turning at this end or that, I can direct my mind to think of anything else, pushing the excruciating agony of mowing the lawn to the darkest recesses of mental storage for such experiences while I engage in a sort of self-hypnosis that I am doing anything else but experiencing a physically demanding endeavor, outdoors in the heat of the Florida sun.

Gratefully, the process of the Zen lawn-mowing usually does not significantly damage the ornamentals. If the lawn has been sufficiently prepared in advance there are effective borders to barricade the celebrated flowerbeds and honorable sensitive shrubbery from an inadvertent, errant overrun after a poorly executed turn.

See 'The Art of Zen-Landscape Design' for further instruction.